Cannin'

  What a beautiful day, and we have close to 500 ears of corn to do something with!  Lots of canning, maybe some freezing and probably giving more than just a few away to friends. Hunter and Gatherer go through a lot of corn in the year and we haven't canned corn in 6 or 7 years. I remember when we did this the first time-we were out on our deck and shucked and pot-watched all day long and into part of the night.  We don't have that much time this go 'round because I have to work tomorrow, but we get done what we can.  The smell coming from the pressure canners are amazing-it's just fresh cut-off-the-cob corn, but WOW-it smells so good.  It it going to taste like a wonderful summer day smack dab in the middle of winter.
  Yesterday we canned peaches-peach jam and honey peaches and you talk about aroma on the back deck!  The yellow jackets liked it too and so we gave them a little bit to drown in.  We put some of the honey water in a bowl and set it away from the processing area and let them have at it-instead of just getting to the edge of the bowl and tasting they tend to want to take a bath in it and then they end up drowning. Gatherer said maybe they get drunk with it and Hunter said they don't seem too smart.
  The drag of canning is constantly watching the canners so they stay on pressure-it seems as though I am just sitting around for the hour and 25 minutes while they cook doing nothing! It drives me batty, so I thought I would blog a bit.
  We are thinking about putting in a root cellar.  We have thoughts on digging right into the side of a hill on our property and lining it with railroad ties for the walls and ceiling. Shelving and floor space for canning jars and baskets of root veggies of course, and that way we can eat all winter the bounty of our efforts in the spring summer and fall.  It is quite an effort and I don't know if it will happen this year or not. Living up this far though, and being so far from the conveniences of city life (a major store is 45 miles in either direction) forces you to consider alternate (and often what folks would consider the old-fashioned way of doing things) methods of food storage.
  It froze just a touch three days ago-I had a beautiful acorn squash just going to town and when I checked the garden the next morning the leaves were black.  My tomatoes were unscathed as were the onions and garlic, but I sure was looking forward to that squash!  Greenhouse anyone?  That thought keeps my mind busy. I am debating (and often with Hunter) about getting one, size, location, materials, maintenance, blah, blah, blah.  I have seen a lot of PVC pipe frames that are sitting on people's property around the area that are seemingly unused and I think OOH! I wonder if they would be willing to sell it me (cheap) so I could get started in protecting my garden stuffs.  But then I think, WHY are there so many that ARE unused? Did the owner get old, give up, consider it too much work, pass away, or DO THE STRUCTURES NOT WORK UP HERE? Hmm. More research on that one.